jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 31, 2014 9:48:20 GMT -5
The plastic pellets are the way. Makes sense, and is the moral majority saying the same thing Every tumbler company sells them. Curious how long does it take to do the 500 step for instance ? And what grits/polishes do you use ? Is it a long tumble once you have finished coarse grind ? The fluorite looks pretty sensitive. It almost sheds grains when you rub it. shish. That clanking sound is not going to get it, that's for sure. Got a few more things to try. An interest in thickeners still pulling on me.
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Post by captbob on Oct 31, 2014 10:12:01 GMT -5
Bear in mind I have yet to try it, but the shammy idea just sounds logical to me. I will try it in this obsidian batch, but that will be awhile yet.
I wouldn't buy plastic beads from a "tumbler company", I'd look for bulk elsewhere. Several years ago, I found someone on eBay selling 50 pounds for a song. Don't recall price, but way less than half of elsewhere. It was in the hobby/craft section I think. People use these to stuff their creations - animal/doll kinda things. Maybe a bean bag would provide a lifetime supply?
I'm not the guy to ask "how long". I'm into overkill on most every project and run tumble stages darn near FOREVER. If an entire tumble doesn't take me into months I'm slacking! Works tho...
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 31, 2014 11:16:45 GMT -5
Thanks for the source captbob. The sinking pellets I bought came from ebay too. And were cheap. One aversion I have with pellets is my barrels are biggish and it probably takes a lot. May ask your opinion on how much volume you run per pound of rock.
Will look forward to how the shammys work. Good to try stuff. On a practical level. Real interested.
Better to have 12 pounds of perfect tumbles than 100 pounds of crappy tumbles. Do it right or not at all. Headed to the feed store to get lime, and concrete place to find crushed limestone or dolomite.
The obsidian I got from doughboy on ebay is true brown mahogany. The OB from deserthound is redder in color. Real nice. Will post pics on vender page soon. The color and pattern difference is great. doughboys micro snowflake is real nice. anyway, doughboy was cheap in his 16-20 pound lots in comparison.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2014 13:19:10 GMT -5
fluorite is a mineral with "perfect cleavage". Can it even BE tumbled?
Perhaps in your super slow barrels....
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 31, 2014 13:56:41 GMT -5
fluorite is a mineral with "perfect cleavage". Can it even BE tumbled? Perhaps in your super slow barrels.... Not mine-not yet. Maybe one day. It is a target. Just bought a 50 pound bag of powdered non-abrasive agricultural lime for $7. I believe you said they mix aluminum oxide w/lime powder ??
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2014 14:01:32 GMT -5
Zam is aluminum oxide and calcium carbonate. It works great on some hard to polish materials. I cannot say why.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 31, 2014 15:35:38 GMT -5
Holymoly. Got a 80% full barrel at 85% calcium hydroxide(close) slurry at 32 RPM making smooth music. no filler It took like 10 cups of the lime, it is like talcum powder.
Made the same slick slurry as my coral has from it's lime coating. It has the consistency of thick Behr paint. or easily thicker by adding lime. Best quiet run so far. will add 1000 or polish tomorrow to see if the abrasive will get to it. Will check the particle size of the lime. It does not matter because the tumbler will beat it to nothing, it is very soft. Certain that it is similar to polish in size. It is also used for adjusting pH in drinking water.
down side, it is messy till wet. and still messy like wet plaster of paris. so is slurry
made a sound video
32 RPM 80% full of rocks, 85% full of slurry, no filler, same round large obsidians. On the 12 RPM it made no clunking
Compare to 12 RPM, 95% full of rocks, 100% full of sugar slurry, no filler
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Post by connrock on Nov 1, 2014 6:08:19 GMT -5
I don't understand the chamois theory? What is the advantage of using chamois over tried and true methods? connrock
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Post by connrock on Nov 1, 2014 6:24:55 GMT -5
When I ran rotaries a typical 500 grit run,without plastic pellets,,, would be about 12-14 days. If I was doing something soft the 500 grit stage with pellets would be about the same time but I used 1/2 rocks 1/2 pellets,,,sometimes even more pellets then rocks.
I brought home a 50 gal cardboard barrel of plastic pellets and found that they didn't float!I was not happy,,,,brought them back to work and got another barrel with floating pellets. Separating non-floating pellets is NOT a fun thing to do!
I never used pellets in the rough stage because (to me) it's just defeating the purpose of roughing. I rarely used them in the 2nd stage but always did in the rest of the stages.
I stored each grit size and polish pellets in separate containers and re-used them over and over again,,,for years. connrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 1, 2014 9:39:17 GMT -5
When I ran rotaries a typical 500 grit run,without plastic pellets,,, would be about 12-14 days. If I was doing something soft the 500 grit stage with pellets would be about the same time but I used 1/2 rocks 1/2 pellets,,,sometimes even more pellets then rocks. I brought home a 50 gal cardboard barrel of plastic pellets and found that they didn't float!I was not happy,,,,brought them back to work and got another barrel with floating pellets. Separating non-floating pellets is NOT a fun thing to do! I never used pellets in the rough stage because (to me) it's just defeating the purpose of roughing. I rarely used them in the 2nd stage but always did in the rest of the stages. I stored each grit size and polish pellets in separate containers and re-used them over and over again,,,for years. connrock Great info. So a about a half-half mix. Never knew what the ratio should be. And the run time. Curious why you were not happy with the sinking plastic. Seems that it would be better to have floating beads that float at the top where the rocks tend to roll and clank. 50 pounds would last a life time if reusing. Surprises me that any plastics would sink. Most plastic seems light weight. Anyway, you used your pellets for years making them economical. cool Using the beads in roughing does seem unnecessary. Am concerned about stage 2. Seems like it is the last chance to remove bruises ? Or add them. I did like the glass filler for #2. Have bruised this stuff at one point or another in EVERY step LOL. Poor obsidian, in an eternal tumble. getting smaller and smaller connrock, LOL again, how about COL, crying out loud. Slowly giving in to the pellets. Got a couple of experiments left with thickeners. I researched tripoli connrock. It is just plain old quartz basically. A mohs 7 abrasive. It comes from several different quartz sources. You used it in your Lot-O which to me is ingenious. Softer abrasive still grinds the obsidian fine but probably breaks down faster, a good thing. Found that Kingsley North sells tripoli powder, 50 pounds for $80 !! El cheapo abrasive. Why use diamond abrasive if the Lot-O is probably not going to break it down for example ?!? Or AO and SIC on softer rocks for that matter. Looked at garnet abrasives too, found 50 pounds 46 grit garnet for $28. Been researching softer abrasives for the reason they may break down easier and grind still grind the softer rocks. That is where I found the softer than AO tripoli. Cheaper abrasives led me on another path(sorry). I know that I can make a thick slurry out of cheap garden lime called 'milk of lime'. If you have a thick pasty protective slurry why not overdose it with cheap softer abrasive ?? Dissolved lime in water is very heavy. It would support a lot of grit. It will darn near will float a marble. Discussion on milk of lime in next post.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 1, 2014 9:44:35 GMT -5
A quote:
"Milk of lime was placed in a wide cylinder, slowly rotating to permit agitation. The hydrometer(specific gravity tester) was inserted and allowed to sink slowly; the reading taken when it stopped. In the case of a thin slurry, the reading must be taken quickly before the lime settles, while in the case of a thick cream of lime, duplicate readings should be taken to assure the correct hydrometer value.
The table is for milk-of-lime suspensions. Above 30% solids some limes no longer show properties of a suspension and are quite stiff (paste). At 35% additives are often added to make the suspension pumpable. At 40% these limes are generally too stiff to pump.
Settling rates of commercial lime slurries vary widely and depend primarily upon the particle size of the lime. Finely pulverized pure limes settle slowly; on the other hand, coarse limes settle rapidly."
Common garden lime(calcium hydroxide) comes in 50 pound bags costing less than $10 in most areas. It is usually a very fine powder. The tumbler will make it finer, helping it to suspend in water. It will mix with the water using a kitchen whisk or even a long spoon, making what is called ‘milk of lime’. 2 pounds calcium hydroxide(garden lime) costing 28 cents, put in 1 gallon of water makes 1.2 specific gravity and 28% of solids in solution. The results are a slick heavy liquid. Most likely capable of floating abrasive particles easily. Somewhere around 25-35% solids in solution it may serve as a protective creme for sensitive/soft rocks in the tumbler.
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Post by captbob on Nov 1, 2014 10:12:43 GMT -5
I don't understand the chamois theory? What is the advantage of using chamois over tried and true methods? connrock I don't know that there is an advantage. It's more along the lines of all James' recent threads - experimentation & discovery. In theory it just sounds like a good idea to me. In reality...? It may be that the shammy pieces all gravitate to each other and I end up with a blob of shammy impeding the tumble. I think that the mixing and dispersion of the shammy pieces in the barrel would become evident in a quickness. May not work, but for a couple bucks for a man made shammy (not a real chamois) it's really not much to lose other than a day or two of tumble time - which I obviously don't care about.
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Post by captbob on Nov 1, 2014 10:32:48 GMT -5
When I ran rotaries a typical 500 grit run,without plastic pellets,,, would be about 12-14 days. If I was doing something soft the 500 grit stage with pellets would be about the same time but I used 1/2 rocks 1/2 pellets,,,sometimes even more pellets then rocks. Great info. So a about a half-half mix. Never knew what the ratio should be. And the run time. I think the point was more that there is no ratio. Try as we might to make it so, this ain't rocket science. If we mess up, some guy isn't gonna be left to die floating in outer space. Put some pellets in. If the rocks are still making a noise you disapprove of, add more. I'm on my final run of 60/90 on this obsidian batch before moving on to 120/220. Which will be followed by 320 then 500 - all SiC. The runs after 60/90 will only need to be about a week or two each give or take. 500 may run longer - mostly depending on my mood and which way the wind is blowing that week. Will follow this with AO. Whether I start with 500 AO or go straight to 1000 also remains to be seen. This final 60/90 run has as many pellets in it as I will have in later stages. Because, I'm already considering this a finishing step even though I'm still on 60/90. Guess ya gotta be here.
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Post by connrock on Nov 1, 2014 14:03:35 GMT -5
I didn't like the sinking pellets for 2 reasons,,, One was that they were a LOT more difficult to separate from the rocks,,,,,floating pellets = dump rocks in bucket of water,pellets float to top,,,,scoop out! Sinking pellets = a freekin mess trying to separate them from the rocks! LOL The other reason is(maybe crazy) but I figure the sinking pellets are mixed in with the rocks and don't add as much "cushion" as floating pellets which (in my mind) would be more apt to be mixed with the rocks but also be on the top of the barrel and the rocks would force them back down as the rocks tumbled causing a better cushion??? When I first started doing Apache Tears I always had trouble and they came out lousy.As time went on and I learned a little about what was actually happening in that barrel I decided to use a 50/50 ratio of Tears and pellets.It worked for me so I just kept doing it that way. "Poor obsidian, in an eternal tumble. getting smaller and smaller connrock,,,"It's bad enough how much rock we loose doing agate and jasper but obsidian seems like we loose about 1/2 of what we start out with! LOL This is an extreme case of material loss but these were for the Competition so I roughed them 9 times,,,, This is the rough weight when I started ,,,, The was the final weight after polish,,,,, Amazing that I lost 2.36 lbs!! Thanks for the info on the Tripoli,,,,I always wondered what it really was. You already had me confused with this thread and now you talk about lime! LOL connrock
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Post by connrock on Nov 1, 2014 14:10:03 GMT -5
captbob,,,,I think you may be right about the chamois balling up but who knows? I'm done experimenting so it's all up to you young bucks now! LOL
I did the "hit ad miss" thing with pellets for a long time.When I found that a 50/50 ratio worked I kept doing it.
I have to disagree with you about someone floating around in space,,,,I've been "way out there" all my life! LOL
connrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 1, 2014 14:11:21 GMT -5
Good to hear others consider the sound. Most important with obsidian is the sound.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 1, 2014 14:55:46 GMT -5
I didn't like the sinking pellets for 2 reasons,,, One was that they were a LOT more difficult to separate from the rocks,,,,,floating pellets = dump rocks in bucket of water,pellets float to top,,,,scoop out! Sinking pellets = a freekin mess trying to separate them from the rocks! LOL The other reason is(maybe crazy) but I figure the sinking pellets are mixed in with the rocks and don't add as much "cushion" as floating pellets which (in my mind) would be more apt to be mixed with the rocks but also be on the top of the barrel and the rocks would force them back down as the rocks tumbled causing a better cushion??? When I first started doing Apache Tears I always had trouble and they came out lousy.As time went on and I learned a little about what was actually happening in that barrel I decided to use a 50/50 ratio of Tears and pellets.It worked for me so I just kept doing it that way. "Poor obsidian, in an eternal tumble. getting smaller and smaller connrock,,,"It's bad enough how much rock we loose doing agate and jasper but obsidian seems like we loose about 1/2 of what we start out with! LOL This is an extreme case of material loss but these were for the Competition so I roughed them 9 times,,,, This is the rough weight when I started ,,,, The was the final weight after polish,,,,, Amazing that I lost 2.36 lbs!! Thanks for the info on the Tripoli,,,,I always wondered what it really was. You already had me confused with this thread and now you talk about lime! LOL connrock Floating the pellets to the top and scooping them up makes perfect sense. So does having them up top where the banging is. The tripoli worked on the obsidian even though it is only Mohs 7. That cheap grit is interesting. I am not laughing but relating to the 2 pound weight loss in 3.4 pounds of rock. As long as the mess ups are at the surface they are still repairable, what the heck. This stuff is easy to coarse grind. The problem is the finish stages. Damage in the finish may have to be removed in coarse though. I am not at 9 yet, but may be before it is over. It's all about learning.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 1, 2014 15:19:55 GMT -5
The lime ran last night. The slurry got thicker by morning as the lime broke down. Poured a little off and added water to thin it a bit. If you want a thicker slurry fast, this stuff is the way. Will add grit to it soon to see if it will allow the grit to cut the rocks. It is slick. It settles and the grit will probably stick to it and settle with it. It makes a heavy slurry. Added 1/2 pound and 3/4 pound to 1 quart of water. It did not raise the water level much, but it sure made it heavier. One quart water weighs 2.1 pounds. Now weighs 2.85 pounds with only a slight rise in volume. Settles nicely so that water on top can be poured off leaving the grit in suspension. Should separate away from added wash down water easily. Making reuse of 500 1000 5000 14000 50000 slurries easy. Add water as needed shake them up and pour in barrel to reuse. sweet Black line was clean water line when filled with water. Level in photo after 1/2 and 3/4 pound of lime added. One hour settle time shown. Settlement after 7 hours This is a thick non-abrasive slurry:
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Post by captbob on Nov 1, 2014 16:17:47 GMT -5
You use 50,000 for tumbling? Can you tell a noticeable difference from 14,000?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 1, 2014 17:24:18 GMT -5
You use 50,000 for tumbling? Can you tell a noticeable difference from 14,000? not yet. But did buy some to try. The 5000 came in and removed the matte finish from some 1000 that has been running for 10 days. I took a 10 day old 1000 tumbled coral and rubbed it on a wet rag laced with 5000 to do the test. It did remove the haze from 1000 I have been complaining about. Am certain I will get a better polish adding the 5000 step to all type rocks before moving to 14,000. Was waiting to test the 5000 before trying the 50,000. By the same token, the 5000 dulled the polish on a 14,000 polished coral.
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